First ever movies with biometrics and fake fingers
Alert ! Spoilers ahead !
I'm sorry, but it's rather unavoidable. Remember that we are speaking about silent movies with short durations.
Movies and films often mirror the current state of science and technology, as well as the boundless realm of our imagination. The concept of biometrics, although not referred to by that name, made an early appearance thanks to Alphonse Bertillon and his "bertillonage" system, developed around 1883. This system heavily relied on fingerprints, marking it as the first effective biometric method utilized by law enforcement.
First biometric movie
So it is not a surprise that « Betrayed by a Handprint » (1908) is the first ever movie with biometrics.
Handprint is at the center of the plot, likely because it is easy to show, and much easier than fingerprints very difficult to picture with the 1908 material, image quality was quite poor.
First movie with fake
Bad guys are always very inventive, and a few years later, the French movie Fantômas III (1913) is the first involving fake fingers.
The image quality of this film is much better than « Betrayed by a Handprint », although it's only 5 years later, and is reflecting the scientific police (which was not named like that at this time).
It's funny to think that nowadays, this kind of movies or serials where we can see the scientific police at work have still a lot of success.
Two others movies are likely exhibiting fingerprints (clue : their names) :
- [1912] « The Finger Prints »
- [1913] « The Finger Print »
When I wrote this page, these movies were not available. One is considered lost, maybe also the other one.
Collection
I started to collect all these biometric movies since I launched my website in 2004 and participated in the INCITS (International Committee on Information Technology Standards), as voting member in the M1 Biometrics Committee. I remember some discussions with my US colleagues about these movies, and at this time, we were counting not so many movies. Internet was starting, and there was no film available, the bandwidth was too small, so it was difficult to set up a list. When I got a movie name, my objective was to find a DVD in US shop (forget the French stores) to check and get some images.
So I got 58 biometric movies end of 2004, and it increased with years. But now, a lot of old movies are available on the web, and I reached 300+ movies, just get a look at my list ! There are many movies with fingerprints, linked to the "film noir" style (« a style of Hollywood crime drama that emphasizes cynical attitudes and motivations ») in the 1940s and 1950s.
Firsts
Modalities
First time for each modality, existing or not, in order of appearance.
| Handprint | [1908] | Betrayed by a Handprint | |
| Fingerprint | [1912] | The Finger Prints (Alice Guy) | |
| Voice | [1968] | 2001: A Space Odyssey | |
| Retinal | [1982] | Star Trek 2 The Wrath of Khan | |
| Palmprint | [1989] | James Bond 17 Licence To Kill | |
| DNA | [1995] | Screamers | |
| Face | [1997] | The Fifth Element | (automated) |
| Breath | [1997] | Alien 4 Resurrection | (joke) |
| Iris | [1997] | Total Reality | |
| Handwritting | [2001] | Wasabi | (automated) |
| Lips | [2004] | Catwoman | (automated) |
| Body | [2005] | Mr & Ms Smith | |
| Saliva | [2006] | Un ticket pour l'espace | (joke) |
| Testicle | [2006] | Un ticket pour l'espace | (joke) |
| Foot | [2009] | Monsters vs Aliens | (joke) |
| Tongue | [2009] | Monsters vs Aliens | (joke) |
| Elbow | [2009] | Monsters vs Aliens | (joke) |
| Butt | [2009] | Monsters vs Aliens | (joke) |
Some of these modalities are just jokes, laughing at the biometric industry. For instance, butt. But 😁 two years after, it was proposed by some Japanese guys for cars (to identify the driver).
Fingerprints, followed by face recognition and eyes, are the most common modalities, as you can guess. It exists much more modalities, so there is room for new ideas.
First combination : layered biometrics
For security reasons, it's better to use several modalities at the same time (or in a very short sequence), which is called « layered biometrics ».
True Lies in 1994 was the first to demonstrate a fictitious device with retinal, fingerprint and voice scanners.
Automated recognition
Handprint & fingerprint were the first modalities to be included in movies, but it was a manual match, performed by humans. I exclude face recognition, naturally done by humans (with more or less accuracy, we all know that witnesses are not always trustable).
Once computers were efficient enough, automated recognition started, and it was very helpful to the police, starting with fingerprints. First face recognition algorithms were pretty bad, showing poor false recognition rates (= they were making many mistakes, matching wrong persons too often to be usable). This has changed now.
The first automated recognition visible in a movie is the hand recognition machine shown in Close Encounters of the Third Kind [1975].
First real products
In cinema, film shots must be cinematic in order to be shown. And real products rarely show an attractive design, and normally, for security reasons, no biometric images are shown (it would help hackers). Very often, we see nice but unrealistic images.
But the first automated recognition machine in Close Encounters of the Third Kind was a real machine, the Identimat 2000 from Identimation [1969] !
Then we waited 1994 to see again a real product on the big screen, in Outbreak and it was a handprint reader from Recognition Systems.
In 1995, we saw the Eyedentify retina reader in Goldeneye :
In the past, there was no fingerprint reader "behind a screen". The cinema shown very often people pressing their finger directly on a screen to capture the fingerprint, which was unrealistic. So I waited until 2004 and The Bourne Supremacy to see a real fingerprint reader, BUT...
The HP iPAQ is a product released in 2002 that I personally know very well, having the swipe fingerprint sensor I invented (called the FingerChip).
BUT they showed an acquisition directly on the screen. The real fingerprint sensor is below the screen. 😢😬
I waited 2007 to see my fingerprint sensor again in Ocean's Thirteen with a real product from SSS Siedle :
And again in 2009, in RTT, it was the TOCAhome from Ekey :
In 2005, a real fingerprint device from Sagem was shown in Les Chevaliers du Ciel, with a normal way of using it.
But that's pretty rare to see real products.
To my best knowledge, these are the firsts. I would be happy if you point some earlier movies to update my list. If you find a movie with some biometrics, first find the release date of the movie, then check in my list, there are not so many movies per year.
You will find hereafter some details about the first movies. And the list at the end.
Link to the present page (to insert in your pages if needed) :
Jean-François Mainguet / mainguet.org
First movies with biometrics
Betrayed by a Handprint
« Betrayed by a Handprint » is a movie from D. W. Griffith made in 1908 (filmed 19.8.1908 (NY Studio). Rel: 1.9.1908), more than a century ago. Biometric modality is handprint. I found some interesting details from 1908, some of them are described hereafter.
Story is extracted from : Moving Picture World synopsis from Biograph Bulletin, No. 166, September 1908
The art of palmistry is decried and we may say tabooed by many, still we must admit that it at times has its use, as this Biograph subject will show.
While spending the night at wealthy widow Wharton's home, Myrtle steals a pearl necklace and cleverly hides the loot. Little does she know the widow knows a thing or two about fingerprinting.
A guest is eminent palmist Professor Francois Paracelsus, who of course, was called upon to read the palms of those present.
Sheets of paper were left on the drawing room table, so the erudite soothsayer would look at them at his leisure.
Then Miss Vane steals diamonds in Mrs Wharton room. Mrs. Wharton, aroused from her slumber, intuitively looks to her diamonds, but finds them gone.
On the dresser there is a sheet of the palmister's paper on which there is a handprint of dust.
There it is, and signed "Myrtle Vane."
(I know, it's hardly visible. Remember, 1908)
From a biometric point of view, there are all the required steps :
- Enrollment, collecting biometric features and associated data (names). So we have a database.
- Capture of a handprint with the help of the dust.
- Searching through the database : comparing the handprint with each record in the database.
- Matching.
For sure, at this time, there is no machine to perform the comparison and return a score, this is the human brain which does the job.
The scenario is realistic, maybe a bit lucky to find such a handprint on a sheet of paper with dust. But searching through a few records is correct to find a match. Fingerprint could do the job as well, but it's already hard to show even a mere visible palmprint on the screen at this time.
« Betrayed by a Handprint » 10 minutes long :
Fantômas III « Le Mort qui tue » (1913)
Fantômas III « Le Mort qui tue » (The Murderous Corpse), is a French movie from Louis Feuillade which goes a big step further in biometric area as fake fingerprints are involved. I believe this is the very first fake biometric feature shown in a movie. And likely the first time we sees the police registering a defendant.
The plot
A guy called Dollon is arrested, and goes to anthropometry service. This is a nice report of how the police was working in 1913, when the methods initiated by Alphonse Bertillon are applied.
5 years after « Betrayed by a Hanprint »
What are doing the bad guys with the corpse ?
It took only a few second to search and match
(much faster than our supercomputers).
After a while, Fantômas is identified by Fandor and the police.
The same idea is used again in a future Fantomas movie (1964).
The Finger Prints (1912)
« The Finger Prints » was directed by Alice Guy who made so many films. Released December 25, 1912.
... A young detective on the case examines carefully the murdered body and finds fingerprints on the white vest of the dead banker...
I did not find any images of this movie. Likely lost.
The Finger Print (1913)
Take care : this is not the same movie as « The Finger Prints ».
« The Finger Print » directed by Oscar Eagle, is released 20-OCT-1913.
Here is an extract of the plot :
He has more than one trick up his sleeve, however, and that is an inked cuff. One of the gamblers accidentally rubs his thumb against his rural neighbor's cuff, which has been carefully inked. The impress of his thumb is then transferred to the cards that the gambler is handling. Muntone palms the cards so accidentally marked, passes them through the window to his assistant on the outside, who compares it with the thumb marks on the handle of the curling-iron that was dropped the night of the robbery. They coincide; the link of evidence is complete.
Film not found.
After 1920, see at the end to get the full list.
Bertillonage
That said, this is a nice report about the police techniques at this time.
20 years later, From Headquarters (1933) shows the progress done in fingerprinting.
List
I am collecting all these big screen movies using biometrics for years now, and as of today, I identified 310+ movies.
